Street shrines for slain Oakland officers draw crowds, debate

Share this:

La-Uana Terrell, a life long resident of Oakland, puts some flowers and a card on the sidewalk outside the apartment on 73rd Ave. where two police officers and the suspect were killed. La-Uana had just come from taking flowers to the Oakland Police Department in downtown Oakland, Calif. before coming back to her East Oakland neighborhood where she lives Monday, March 23, 2009. (Laura A. Oda/staff)

Five flags fly over buckets of flowers for the four slain police officers and the suspect at the intersection of 74th Avenue and MacArthur Boulevard in East Oakland, Calif. Monday, March 23, 2009. (Laura A. Oda/staff)

Mildred Moore, a resident of an East Oakland neighborhood, breaks down crying after hanging a sign up at one of the memorials on 74th Ave. and MacArthur Boulevard in Oakland, Calif. on Monday, March 23, 2009. She and her friend walked to MacArthur to put flowers out and to post the sign that expresses support for the police officers killed and their families. (Laura A. Oda/Staff)

Four separate street shrines emerged. One was next to Elmhurst Pharmacy on MacArthur Boulevard, near the site of the first shooting of the two motorcycle officers, Sgt. Mark Dunakin and Officer John Hege.

Another memorial a little farther down the sidewalk had five buckets holding American flags lined up against the fence.

Four of the buckets bore the names of the fallen officers written in black marker. The fifth bucket was marked “OPD.”

On the opposite corner was a hand-printed sign with more flowers, which read, “Condolences and prayers for the police officers families. They were murdered in the line of duty.”

And in front of the three-story, white-stucco apartment building on 74th Avenue, where the shooter, Lovelle Mixon, 26, was killed by police after he shot and killed two SWAT team members, Sgts. Erv Romans and Dan Sakai, more flowers had been placed, some with cards labeled: “To the Mixon family.”

“This is a loss for everyone,” said La-Uana Terrell, 40, a lifelong Oakland resident who lives three blocks from the shooting. She had just been downtown at the police station, delivering flowers for the officers, and then came to place more at the apartment building for Mixon’s relatives.

“It’s a loss, not just to the friends and family of the officers, but also for the relatives of the alleged criminal,” Terrell said. “Here these officers, it was their responsibility to do their job. No one wins in a situation like this. They were all a part of our community, the officers, the young man. So many lives lost in such a quick instant. They are all God’s children, no matter what.

“And the community suffers too,” she said. “It puts our city in even a more negative light, a smear on our city, in the eyes of the whole United States. And this is a beautiful city. Cultural. Integrated. It’s all just so awful.”

“This just shocked everybody,” said Keith McCree, who had come from across town to see the scene and to pay his respects. He stood in front of the American flags, shaking his head and looking at the names of the officers written on the buckets. “This just doesn’t make no sense,” he said. “A lot of people knew these officers. And some not even personally, but they have relatives who are officers, and it’s close to home.

“The media are trying to connect it with the shooting of that kid on New Year’s Day, but it’s got nothing to do with that,” McCree said, referring to Oscar Grant III, who was killed by a BART police officer Jan. 1. “It doesn’t make no sense. There are good people in Oakland. It’s just too bad this is what the world sees.”

As McCree got back in his car to leave, a woman arrived with a large photo of Grant, loudly asserting a connection between the officers’ deaths and Grant.

“A lot of people are scared of the police right now,” said Dolores Darnell, as she placed the photo at the memorial by the apartment building, getting in an argument with another mourner. “The police put up a candlelight for their people, so I came out to put out something for our people. There’s two sides to every story.”

Mixon’s cousin disputed such comments. “I don’t know why you’re saying that,” she said. “Oscar Grant’s got nothing to do with this. That’s a whole other situation. Not even the same police involved.”

Mixon’s cousin, who didn’t want her name used, said Mixon was “a good guy.”

“I don’t know what was in his mind,” she said. “He’s a good guy. He does the normal things like everybody else, smoke weed and drink, drive his little car down MacArthur to impress the little girls. There must be more to this.”

Others also sought answers, placing blame on the government and society itself.

“A lot of it is (state Attorney General) Jerry Brown’s fault,” said a man who served a 24-year prison term and three years of parole. The man, who didn’t want his name used, has been out of prison for eight years and now has a job as a solar panel installer, he said.

“I was fortunate to have a good support system when I got out, and it was still almost impossible to get a job,” he said. “Prisoners — they don’t know about the economy and finances. It’s a culture shock when they come out, and nobody helps them get back into the regular world. They’re not prepared.

“I was really hurt by this incident,” he said. “For one thing, to lose life like that. And also, to see an individual so disenfranchised that he would do this. Now it will be even more strained relationships with the police. Now it’ll be worse. I know (the police) are going to be on high alert, and I can understand why.”

Another debate erupted about the lack of discipline of children in today’s society. And another arose about young men not having father figures. “Us women are out here trying to do it all,” one woman said. “The father’s either in jail or dead.”

“People need to start taking responsibility for their own actions and stop looking to others for excuses,” said Tom Spear, of Berkeley.

“I don’t have a job, and I have been on parole. But I never murdered four people because of it,” he said. “This isn’t Jerry Brown’s fault, the parole officers’ fault, Ron Dellums’ fault or society’s fault. Mixon made a choice. “… In today’s world where everyone is looking at the government to solve their problems, we need to stop, take a deep breath and realize that no one made Mixon pull the trigger on his gun four times.”

It was a quieter, more somber scene at Oakland City Hall on Monday, where four condolence books were set out in the lobby. Residents lined up to write thoughts in honor of the four officers.

“I woke up this morning with a fantasy,” said Jumoke Hodge, an Oakland school board member who was signing the books. “It was a hope that this could galvanize people who were not necessarily interested in gun control to get involved in the issue.

“My hope is that this is the perfect storm that finally gets us to make some progress,” Hodge said. “Someone’s got to step up with some leadership, with a plan for public safety. It needs to get the guns off our streets and it needs to be thorough and specific.”

Back in East Oakland, tensions grew even more at the memorials as the day progressed. Some posted blank paper signs reading, “How do you really feel about the police?” Beneath, several people had anonymously written angry, sometimes contemptuous comments about race and power issues.

“This is post-traumatic stress,” said Yokia Mason, a community health outreach worker for Alameda County, watching the response at the memorials.

Mason’s brother was shot to death in 2005, she said, fewer than four blocks from the scene where Hege and Dunakin were shot. She pointed up and down the street, recalling scenes of several killings and other tragedies that have stricken this stretch of MacArthur Boulevard for years, earning it the nickname The Killing Fields.

“This anger is the result of injury on top of injury on top of injury,” Mason said. “It’s the police. It’s the people on the streets. It’s everybody. We all have post-traumatic stress, and if it goes untreated, it shows up as addiction. Addiction to drugs, or negative emotions.”

Mason said she hoped mental health services would be made widely available not just for community members, but for the police, as well.

“Think about the officers that still have to work. They just lost family. They’re grieving,” Mason said. “But someone has to protect and serve, so they have to go to work despite how they’re feeling.

The California Highway Patrol has released a video of one of its helicopter crews performing a dramatic rescue of two British hikers who were stranded on the edge of a massive granite cliff overlooking Yosemite Valley as a major snow storm was nearing.The video, posted to Facebook by the CHP’s Central Division Air Operations, shows a helicopter crew that took...

A researcher at a university in the U.K. who came up with a mathematical equation declaring the third Monday in January as "the most depressing day of the year." A mental health advocate has debunked that theory.